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Who is a company responsible to? This question was discussed at a meeting of CEOs in the middle of the twentieth century. The general consensus of the participants was that a company was responsible to return a profit to its shareholders. This pedestrian thinking was congruent with the management philosophy promoted by Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856–1915). For example, Taylor’s book begins as follows:
The principal object of management should be to secure the maximum prosperity for the employer, coupled with the maximum prosperity for each employee.[i]
Taylor’s theory considered employees, but his chief consideration was the return on investment to the employer, that is, the owners or shareholders.
Given the regard Taylor enjoyed in the mid-twentieth century, it is not surprising that CEOs of that era would adopt his thinking.
Nevertheless, one of the participants at the CEO gathering, a young business leader named David Packard, cofounder of Hewlett Packard, respectfully disagreed. He stated his conviction that a company’s responsibility goes beyond the shareholders and even beyond the employees. A company has a responsibility to the community in which it resides and, by implication, a company has a responsibility to society.[ii] One could call this a social responsibility.
Commenting on David Packard’s view, business pundit Jim Collins stated:
The purpose of a company is not to make money. It makes money to do what it’s really all about. And in our case [referring to Hewlett Packard] that is to make a contribution.[iii]
Packard’s expanded view of the responsibility or purpose of a company reflected a view of reality that transcended money. His view reflected concern and care that went beyond personal wealth to the greater good of society. Clearly, his thinking was nobler than the pedestrian view of the day. But as laudable as Packard’s view was, it fell short of the biblical standard.
The writer of the New Testament Epistle of James provided a more profound view of the question, who is a company responsible to? Note his words:
Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit"; whereas you do not know what [will happen] tomorrow. For what [is] your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you [ought] to say, "If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that." But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do [it], to him it is sin.[iv]
The text begins with an imperative come now from the Greek word ἄγω which means “to lead” or “to take with one.” As used in this text, the word seems to imply leading one to an understanding of an idea or concept. The topic is how to properly view a business plan.
A business plan is a vision for how to make a profit at some future time and is a statement of faith based on the assumption of a predictable future. James immediately challenged the arrogance of this presupposition, noting that human beings are unable to accurately know the future. He intimated that there is a multigenerational metanarrative that the Creator is executing and human beings are simply role players in God’s metanarrative. It is arrogant for humans to assume that they can accurately predict the future of a metanarrative orchestrated by an infinite Creator who is not fully comprehendible. Therefore the proper attitude toward business planning is humility; any other attitude is prideful and arrogant. And God resists the proud.[v]
James then noted that the real objective of business planning is to discern the will of God. This means that God has a will for business. The text does not forbid or minimize business planning; rather, James clarified the real purpose of business planning as a process of seeking alignment with God. This means that business planning is a spiritual activity, which intimates that business is important to God. Therefore, first and foremost, business must be responsible to God.
Many find this idea startlingly. The pedestrian view is that business is not important to God and therefore why would He waste time considering business? Isn’t the only value of business, as many would argue, to make money to support the work of the Lord?
The Holy Spirit clearly revealed through James that God values business and has a specific will for business. Therefore business is important to God and indeed business is a means through which the Lord does His work. This intimates that business is part of the plan and purpose of God, which is why He has a will for business. The primary objective of business is therefore not to make money and not even to make a laudable contribution to society; rather, the primary responsibility of business is to align with the will of God. As a consequence of alignment with God, business will be profitable and make valuable social contributions.
Consequently, the view of Frederick Winslow Taylor that the responsibility of business is first to make money for its shareholders is at odds with the teaching of James. Even David Packard’s view that social contribution trumps money, though nobler than Taylor’s, is not as profound as the teaching of James. James articulates with compelling clarity that alignment with the will of God is the profound view of the responsibility of business. Biblically, social contributions and financial gain must therefore be subordinated to the greater good of alignment with the will of God.
Some may argue that social contributions are part of the will of God. This is true when the social contributions are aligned with the will of God. Many current social initiatives do not reflect biblical alignment. For example, currently it is popular for businesses to support non-biblical causes such as androgyny, abortion, and the redefinition of marriage. Therefore social contribution alone is an inadequate business objective. Social contribution can be a means of alignment with the will of God only when the social issue is congruent with Scripture.
Taylor’s view that profit is the objective of business is too low. Packard’s view that business is about making a social contribution and profit is used to support this objective is still too low. James’ view that business is about alignment with the will of God is the profound view of the responsibility of business. Therefore proper business planning is a spiritual activity of discerning the will of God. Business leaders are responsible first and foremost to God. This is the biblical view.
So in the words of James, “Come now.” With this imperative, Scripture commands us to seek the will of God in our business activities; this is the highest responsibility of organizational leaders. James warns business leaders to not take this lightly. Business planning is a serious process of humbly seeking to discern the will of God; failure to do this well is sin.
May the true responsibility of business as revealed in the book of James profoundly convict every organizational leader to humbly engage in business planning with the singular purpose of alignment with the will of God. And may every organizational leader subordinate social contribution and profit to the will of God, as they should.
Merry Christmas!
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[i] Frederick Winslow Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management (Akasha Classics, Kindle Edition, 2008), 9.
[ii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLORM1TcE1A.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] James 4:13–17 NKJV.
[v] James 4:6.
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